Painting is not a TalentIs painting a natural skill?
Vermeer's Young Girl with a Pitcher(Oil on Canvas, 60 cm x 50 cm)
Carol and I, once, saw an artist painting this work of Vermeer on a pavement in a shopping center in Leidschendam amidst passersby who occasionally dropped some coins in his hat. Had he painted it on a canvas and sold it, I'm sure, he would have earned a lot more. Since I was still in that stage of "learning-from-the-masters-by-copying-them", I decided to have my own version. The original only has a blank wall behind the girl and, of course, it was more effective because it helps the viewer to focus on the girl, the center of interest, by omitting distracting details. But, I couldn't resist the urge of adding my own ingredients and so there goes the modern kitchen as a background. I just wanted to have fun and in the process make some studies on cooking pans. Pun not intended!
When did you discover your talent of painting? This is a perplexing question many people often ask me. The perplexity is by no means due to a failing memory. The exact date, time, and place when everything started are still clear in my mind. Rather, it is due to the fact that I never really considered those initial strokes as a manifestation of some inborn talents or as a discovery of some sort. For, all I did was to follow some vague instructions from a television show and, certainly, following instructions can't possibly be equated to a talent or a sign of a talent. Besides, the first painting - a depiction of nature - I ever executed was more an "execution" of nature rather than a superb portrayal of it. In addition, and this is an open secret, I don't know how to draw; I use pantographs to replicate the forms of my subjects; and the only reason why I don't use a projector or a beamer is that I don't have one. In other words, in all honesty, I can't go around claiming to be a naturally gifted painter. And yet, with all modesty, there is no denying that now my art works are greatly appreciated by a wide variety of viewers. To what should this phenomenon be attributed then if not to an inborn talent that was discovered later in life?
Talent as Natural Ability
To answer this question, let me first analyze the notion of talent and then see if the skill of painting can be categorized under it. But before anything else, let me clarify that by "painting" I am referring to the art of forming the likeness of an object on a surface using pigments and that by "talent" I am referring to its strict sense which is elaborated in the next paragraph.
Experts define talent as a natural aptitude or ability. Above all, it is an ability, a capacity that enables us to carry out a special action with ease and perfection. As such, it is the same as any other skill or habit. But the feature that distinguishes it from the other skills is that it is natural. It comes with birth. The clearest example of it would be the talent of singing. Either one has a naturally pleasant voice or one should not even dream of joining Idols. My wife, Carol, buys me a lot of music CDs to prevent me from singing. For, no matter how I try, I just can't sing "Born to Try" as good as Delta Goodrem. I simply wasn't born with vocal chords and ear naturally disposed for creating pleasing sound. Talent, therefore, is a habitual disposition embedded in certain bodily parts. As an essential characteristic of one's anatomy, it is present, although perhaps only in its crude form, from the very beginning of one's existence and that is why it makes sense to say that it is later "discovered".
Can the painting skill be classified as a natural ability genetically encoded in one's physical framework? If so, the bodily organ or faculty in which it resides should be easy to identify, the way the vocal chords and all those parts that aid in voice production have been singled out as seat of singing talent.
Essentially a Skill of the Intellect
At first sight, the skill of painting resides in the hands. After all, a certain degree of dexterity is needed in order create a painting. But, if the painting skill is essentially a natural disposition of the hands, a person without hands should then be incapable of painting, in the same way that a person with severed vocal chords is incapable of singing. Experience tells us the contrary. Countless handicapped people have produced masterpieces just with their teeth, toes, chin, etc. Just the other day I saw on TV an invalid lady painting with her mouth. The hands are not indispensable in painting!
Tropical Delights(Oil on Canvas, 60 cm x 80 cm)
This is a commission work for a client who wanted a Still Life with Filipino fruits. All the fruits were painted from memory except the pineapple, which I closely examined but never bought in a nearby grocery store. For balance and unity, I added a trophy and a vase, making both translucent. The glow that appears at the bottom right side of each where the light emerges after going through both is called transmitted light. Painting transmitted light was initially a painstaking task for me but when I discovered the secret it became a matter of routine and I add it every now and then to spice up a piece.
Does it reside in the eyes? Is painting just a skill of seeing? If so, the blind should be unable to paint. But, I can recall a news report about a blind person creating beautiful paintings by relying heavily on memory and imagination. Having no sight is no obstacle to painting!
Could it reside in the memory or imagination? These two internal senses are needed when the object being painted is physically absent. Otherwise, one may as well have Alzheimer's disease or be totally devoid of imagination and can still paint as long as the model object is present before one's eyes. In the majority of cases, memory and imagination play no role at all in painting.
But, we are not going to examine every single organ of the body in the hope of finding the human faculty responsible for painting. A better strategy would be to analyze what actually happens when we paint, isolate the specific actions involved and then identify the organ or the faculty that carries out such actions.
Let us take the simple case of painting an apple. Here, we have a three-dimensional model (the apple) which we want to represent as is in a two-dimensional surface (canvas) using pigments. In any painting process, there are three basic steps involved. First, we look at the apple and identify its color, shape, size and position in space. Second, we mix the colors corresponding to the apple parts. Finally, we apply the mixtures on the surface in such a way that an image of the apple is reproduced.
In the first step, there is no doubt the eyes are used intensively. But their action consists only in capturing colors or shapes. The main action is making judgments. "The apple is red." "The redness is not the same all over." " The redness of one side is darker than the redness of the other." And so on and so forth. Judgments are specific operations of the intellect or of the mind and not of the eyes. Using the eyes as instruments, the intellect abstracts the nature of the apple and judges it accordingly. But, the intellect can dispense with the eyes. Instead, it can retrieve the image of an apple stored in the memory and use that image as the model. Consequently, the intellect is the main agent in this first step.
In the second step, we try to reproduce the color of the apple by mixing pigments with our hands and eyes. But, again, the manual process of mixing is not the principal action. Above all, we have to decide whether the mixture produced corresponds best to the color of the apple and if not we make the necessary adjustments or we create a new mixture. Decisions are proper functions of the intellect. Therefore, the mind is once again the protagonist in this second stage.
In the final step, we apply the mixture on the canvas, using our hands and our eyes, undoubtedly. But, then it is not just any random or arbitrary application. We have to make sure the applied color acquires the shape or the form of the apple or of a particular segment of the apple. In other words, comparisons are carried out extensively in this stage. If we judge the application to be incorrect, we scrape it off, or paint over it, or invoke artistic license. Comparing is essentially an operation of the mind.
It is clear, therefore, that painting is primarily a skill of the intellect and secondarily a skill of the hands and of the eyes. The intellect is the principal agent and the eyes and hands serve as its instruments. This explains why even with incapacitated eyes or hands, one can still paint. The main agent is still around and can make use of substitute instruments in order to carry out the manual demands of painting.
Now the crucial question: Is painting a natural skill of the intellect?
Not Natural to the Intellect
Gabi Na Sa Aming Nayon(Oil on Canvas, 50 cm x 60 cm)
Like Munting Nayon, I also decided to take a break last month. But, when in vacation, I don't stop painting. Instead, I paint landscapes, which is more relaxing because less effort is required. The sweltering heat in my attic studio must have prompted me to paint this rural scene. Actually, I've always been fascinated by the warmth and glow emanating from a window at dusk. I tried to create the same effect but this time in a setting distinctly Filipino.
To answer in the affirmative would be to go against the firmly established philosophical truth about the intellect: nothing in the intellect is natural. Everything in it is acquired. At the first instance of our existence, our intellect is, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, "tamquam tabula rasa", like a blank tablet on which nothing is written. There are no innate knowledge and talents embedded in it. All its contents - knowledge and skills (painting skill included) - are acquired through its repeated operations: simple apprehension, judgment and reasoning. Therefore, since talent is essentially natural and since painting has been demonstrated to be not natural, strictly speaking, painting is not a talent.
Painting is just one more acquired skill, learned in school or on one's own. It belongs to the same category as the skill of writing, accounting, computer programming, plumbing, cooking, etc. Anyone with a little bit of interest can learn it as easily as one can learn cooking. And since it is essentially an intellectual operation, I would even venture to say that adults can learn it faster than children because adults have a more developed intellect and can, therefore, understand the tenets of paintings better.
I am not sure if anyone had reached the same radical conclusion before. I'm a relative newcomer to the world of painting. I never had the chance to read its history and the thoughts of previous painters on painting, and I never really bothered to dwell on these topics until Mr. Eddie Flores asked me to write a column for his magazine. But, outrageous as this conclusion may appear, it is the only one that can fully explain the phenomenon that took place in me and in many physically disabled but successful painters from Tahanan Walang Hagdanan.
No Discovery
So, when did I discover my talent of painting? Sorry to disappoint but clearly no discovery can ever be made on something previously inexistent. What occurred was a slow and steady acquisition of a skill, a learning process through constant research and practice. Had I studied Fine Arts or had the secrets been revealed to me earlier, this process would have gone at the speed of light and, most probably, a copy of the Night Watch would be in my living room by now. But, whatever trajectory my painting skill took in its coming to be, I'm glad I now have it in a significant degree. Most importantly, I'm glad I tried. And, since I can still spot a lot of weakness areas in my skill, I'll keep on trying until I reach that ultimate irony when painting becomes natural to me.
Care to join?